Article added: Thursday 29 June 2023

The Woodhill 100 2023. - by Philip Hagan

The dawn's early sun breaks over the tree line and the subtle pallet of the tussock sand and toitoi looks sublime in the crisp clear light.

 In my quiet corner, way past where “street view “ ends and cellphones struggle to find a signal, the dawn qualifying is about to start and, so far, the footprints of deer and pigs are the only marks on the racetrack. 

I’m only a short walk from the pits. I’ve left behind the bustle of the Utes, trailers, and teams unloading race cars. I've trekked to my photo position in a sharp right-hander, 500 meters into the sprint.  It’s my corner for the next hour.

This part of the day is a 2.5km sprint against the clock to determine the starting order. The sprints might just be a small part of the day, but this is the most important factor that the drivers can control to give them a chance at a race result. 

In the history of this event, most winners have come from the first ten qualifiers, with more winning from row five than pole position. However, in 2019 Paul Smith won from close to the rear of the field. A rare occurrence indeed.

There’s the sharp bark of a V8 in the distance. This cracks the landscape as the first racer takes on the sprint. 

Suddenly #168 Cody Hata hits the corner in the mid-engined Terra Class 1. This is his first enduro in the forest and he slides wide in the corner. Then disappears rapidly into the forest. Leaving behind only the echo of the thunderous engine, hunting gears and searching for the next corner.

You can hear every gear change, every hesitation. It sounded like an OK run. Cody posts the first time, but his time at the top on the leaderboard is short-lived.

Next to appear in the corner, preceded by the snorting of a wild bull V8 enraged by the track, is the race truck of Leigh Bishop. It’s a great corner, he hits the apex and roars into the forest chasing down a fast time. He doesn’t lift. You hear it go up through the gears and he’s gone. Now Leigh is Top Dog.

This game continues. For most of the players, this sprint is a high-speed blast into the unknown. None of the drivers walked this track and only the competitors that raced it last season had a memory of how long the straights were. What was a kink? What was a 90-degree corner?  You can hear the hesitations as bravery gives way to caution.

The least cautious took the Pole Position for the race. Cutting my corner so close I could see the whites of his eyes. #193 Daynom Templeman used his knowledge of the sprint track to awesome effect. Never lifting, he kept the pedal pinned and let the big Australian Class 1 desert car do its thing at high speed.

Hot on his heels, #890 Boston Morgan-Horan hit the corner hard without lifting and let Big Black take the high line.

The most impressive cornering was by #100 Fergus Crabbe. He came in hot and threw Big Trouble into the corner, revving hard and throwing a curtain of sand and gravel behind. What a driver.

With Boston Morgan-Horan, Holly Russell, Matthew Bishop, and Fergus Crabbe all at this race, all in competitive race cars, and all graduates of the Kiwitruck School of Racing, this race is already historic for the Woodhill 100.

The history of this event keeps being brought up. Why is the Woodhill 100 so important?  This race has been run since 1981 in the Woodhill Forest. It has survived its first club, the Auckland Buggy Club and is now run by Auckland Offroad Racing Club. It has always had a high attrition rate. Typically only 30% of the starters make it to the chequered flag. The sand tracks and the trees brutalize the machines and the drivers. Just finishing this race is a big achievement. The sand tracks change shape with each lap as digging tires excavate the ruts deeper and deeper.

By 11:15am the single-row grid is formed and stretches down the gravel road and disappears over a brow.

On the front row, #193 Daynom Templeman and the navigator sit with a view of the track ahead. Oblivious to the tense pack lining up behind. Row 2 is Woodhill veteran #178 Donn Attwood. Behind him is #863 Leigh Bishop. On Row 4 is #890 Big Black with teenager, Boston Morgan-Horan at the wheel of the 800hp supercharged V8 4x4 racetruck. Row 5 is #S41 Steven Stokes, the fastest of the side-by-sides. #144 Brad Harvey is on row 6. #168 Cody Hata is on row 7 and #171 Paul Smith on row 8. #377 Mike Gibson at row 9 and #S91 Dave Templeman - the old man of the Forest - rounds out the top ten on the grid.

This year the duty of the flag is with the “6 Time Winner” of the Woodhill 100, Ian ‘Stan Clear’ Foster. If anyone knows about the tension of the formed grid it’s Foster. His determination to get the field racing on time is evident. He gets the call from the Marshalls that the track is clear and the grid is formed. He raises the flag. The entire field revs up. His eyes lock with Daynom. The high-strung engines are screaming when Foster drops the flag. Daynom releases the beast and meteorites of rock, gravel, and shrapnel smash into Donn Attwood's racer as his weapon disappears into the long straight with the crowd roaring. 

The flag is instantly up and dropped and Donn takes up the chase. Leigh Bishop pulls up level with Foster. The flag drops again and Bishop joins the fray. Then Boston blasts off with Steven Stokes in hot pursuit. And so it goes with each racer arriving at the flag and being dispatched, with a wave, into Woodhill’s infamous race and history.

The first half of the track is a weaving, looping maze of sand tracks before it heads off into the forest at full throttle on the legendary “Coast Road”. This looping of the track in the sand has provided the crowd with some of the best viewings of the Woodhill 100 in memory. A group of fans had already rushed from the start line to the first point the track crossed the spectator route, in time to see race leader #193 Daynom Templeman still leading with a rampant #178 Donn Attwood holding second with #863 Leigh Bishop battling with #890 Boston Morgan-Horan in hot pursuit. The first three kilometers of the race had set the stage. Daynom looked in charge and he had one hand on the trophy. But any doubts that Boston was too young to be at this level of the sport are smashed. Big Black kept pouring on the pace and it was apparent that we had a real race of titanic proportions unfolding in front of us. 

Often this race is an experience of seeing race cars flash past in the forest once every twenty minutes. This time the racers kept looping back into view and you could really see the pace, the hard going, deep ruts, and big mistakes.

You certainly got to see the pace, when on Lap 4 #890 Boston Morgan-Horan spent the entire duration of the sand tracks punishing the rear cage of race leader #193 Daynom Templeman. This had the crowd on their feet, as it looked like we were about to witness a lead change. For whatever reason, this failed to happen and Daynom re-established a healthy gap between his Class 1 and the Class 8 Thunder Truck in the hands of Boston.

With forest enduros the spectator never see’s everything that happens. More often than not the story comes from the combatants later in the pits. After lap three we stopped seeing #168 Cody Hata circulating. The reason, it turns out, is a wild exit from a sand track that involved an “end-for-end” crash at speed.

Mal Langley was having a great race in his new 2023 Polaris RZR when he followed #S80 Andrew Williams into a heavily rutted corner with a huge berm and rolled out of the race.

We all thought #109 Alan Hilliam would have cooked his Porsche engine way before the end of the race, given the cloud of white smoke that was a constant follower of his race. But he surprised everyone by finishing with the engine intact. Alan said it was probably just finding its own level.

This year's race winner, and now 3 times Woodhill 100 victor is #193 Daynom Templeman. 2nd went to #178 Donn Attwood and 3rd to #151 Shaun Russell. #890 Boston Morgan-Horan lost a rear wheel while on his last lap and was awarded 4th. He had a full lap on the 5th place getter #144 Brad Harvey.

2023 Woodhill 100 Results:

1 193 Daynom Templeman 0.000

2 178 Donn Attwood 1:54:31.395

3 151 Shaun Russell 2:02:36.703

4 890 Boston Morgan-Horan 0.000

5 144 Brad Harvey 1:51:05.470

6 182 Tim Ackers 1:54:21.034

7 U66 Roger McKay 1:55:10.776

8 S80 Andrew Williams 1:56:27.971

9 1082 Ed Hiestand 1:57:35.642

10 310 Connor Nicklin 1:58:24.778

11 109 Alan Hilliam 1:58:42.734

12 S47 Mike Cox 2:01:52.550

13 860 Keri Louie 2:02:09.892

14 S44 Tim McKay 2:02:14.421

15 S41 Steven Stokes 1:47:49.485

16 U72 Scott Mitchell 1:50:22.471

17 U31 Shane McWatt 1:54:24.119

18 C63 Matthew Bishop 1:54:45.477

19 U18 Cam Paton 1:54:46.181

20 551 Holly Russell 1:55:02.017

21 U30 Scott Hay 1:55:59.681

22 U35 Melvin Rouse 1:57:03.796

23 811 James Hayes 2:00:18.705

24 171 Paul Smith 2:02:10.539

25 S39 Malcolm Langley 1:50:39.679

26 197 Josh Attwood 1:56:29.988

27 S30 Ben Charles 2:02:12.992

28 U83 Tracey Rogers 2:03:38.453

29 412 Bradley Scott 2:04:56.753

30 863 Leigh Bishop 1:04:26.202

31 C70 Sareena Paterson 1:55:00.352

32 S91 David Templeman 0.000

33 168 Cody Hata 24:05.794

34 363 Jacob Houghton 27:08.871

35 191 Glen Houghton 32:18.197

36 100 Fergus Crabb 12:24.103

37 377 Mike Gibson 34:42.153

38 548 Justin Waller 1:34.987